Monday, October 20, 2008

My political compass, apparently. I have some issues with the test. There are questions where it can be treated as a factual question and the question is simply false - would I strongly disagree or just disagree? There are cases where I would also disagree with the opposite of the question - "is it better to control inflation over unemployment?".

So now he has the media attention all over his ass (and we all know how unpleasant plumber's crack can be) and everyone knows:

He's not even a licensed plumber, nor has he completed an apprenticeship. (I hope he doesn't lose his job)

He has no clue about small business accounting or taxes. (The business is not likely to be making $250,000 profit - taxes are paid on profit - after expenses, not revenue, so all these expenses you can't afford because of taxes - natch - nothing to do with that!).

He doesn't even pay all the taxes he owes - he has a tax lien.

He doesn't understand enough about government policy to vote in his own interest (to avoid electing someone who dances as well as Sammy Davis, Jr. - I'm sure the next words out of his mouth will be - I'm not prejudiced/a racist).

Despite the pundits who think this is not working for McSame, I think this plays perfectly into the Bush - Cheney - McSame - Pain campaign to allow anyone to do anything, whether it is a small-minded, self-serving, small-town mayor (who overthrew one network of self-dealing to create her own) being (Vice) President of the United States, or a Generation Kill Iraqi veteran who can teach our children without taking any of those annoying tests. It is clear there is a demand out there for unqualified teachers, plumbers, etc because like Palin says - we need to feed our hungry markets with crap.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

In a world of sound bites and misrepresentations and folksy concepts with no basis in reality, I often get extremely frustrated. Modern people are so obsessed with delegation - we delegate our political decision-making, we delegate our childcare, we delegate our manufacturing - at some point one has to wonder what exactly we produce.

I also like The Simple Dollar blog, and the primary reason I decided to fix up my blog and start writing is that he points out that creating value, actually producing is the only true growth. I think that at some point along the way in the dotcom boom and the economic miracle of Clinton capitalism, we lost sight of the fact that the value of something is still independent of its monetization via Google AdSense or some IPO.